Anosmia & Hyposmia

[BoldBear]

Anosmia is the complete loss of smell or to detect odors. Hyposmia is a reduced ability to smell. A loss of smell doesn't include the tastes that are detected by the tongue: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umimi. Someone with anosmia can detect spicy food and they would understand texture. They're blind to differences in the flavors of foods and food can become boring.

These conditions can start from birth or can be brought-on by sinus infections and other medical issues. It can come from the use (or overuse) of some nasal sprays.

What if Jonbenet's ability to smell was compromised. Fecal matter wouldn't smell. Urine would be just yellowy liquid. If she couldn't smell her feces, she wouldn't know the importance of washing her hands. If Patsy was aware that her daughter smelled of feces but Jonbenet appeared not to care about it, this would have caused friction. Imagine if you're being scolded for not properly wiping your behind when all you know is you tried. You get scolded for the brown stuff on your hands after you wipe, but it doesn't have the same negative impact as if you could smell it. Jonbenet doesn't know what to do so she calls on adults to help her. They stop responding so instead of getting that stuff on your hands, you just give-up.

Patsy said one of her 'things' was unflushed toilets and then she contradicted herself by saying Jonbenet's bed wetting wasn't a problem for her.

Two things cold have happened: 1) losing the sense of smell was brought on by the same medical condition that started with her bed wetting problem. 2) Jonbenet lost her sense of smell and was less aware of her own fecal matter. Patsy wasn't aware that it was connected to a medical issue and believed it could be controlled by putting pressure on her daughter through scolding and discipline.

Burke had sleepovers but Jonbenet didn't. Maybe this was due to Jonbenet's inability to detect her own fecal matter. The family worked around it.

This, of course, is only a theory.

(I didn't see anosmia or hyposmia when I searched WS site through google. This might go nowhere, but the topic is worthy of discussion.)

 

[singularity]

interesting theory....certainly possible....but I think they probably just got used to the smell. Also take into account both children had dysfunctional issues with feces. Something was going on in that house...and both children were acting out. What's interesting is that his issues were on the decline while hers were getting worse. The infamous Burke poop incident that BDI like to focus on happened years before her murder. They always forget to mention that part. It's been mentioned years ago that as Patsy's focus turned to Jonbenet, the 'poop dynamic' switched gears as well. I doubt that is a coincidence but its probably not the only explanation.

BDI always sidestep Jonbenet's issues in this department and in this thread, you're focusing on her issues without highlighting his. Probably why this thread got no traction.


I find any issues with feces disturbing. It is not natural to wallow in your own poop. It's a manifestation of bigger problems. I mentioned about a year ago that I had a younger cousin who did this. It was chalked up as encopresis but I always thought it was something worse.


At least you're thinking outside the box. That is sorely missed nowadays.


edit:

Burke had sleepovers but Jonbenet didn't.

I try not to place too much emphasis on this issue. Its likely that she's not having sleepovers due to her age. He is old enough for sleepovers so Burke having them isn't surprising. I would've raised a red flag if he wasn't allowed to have them either.

Allowing sleepovers creates a risk of outsiders witnessing some sort of dysfunction. Simply due to the fact he's having sleepovers shows they weren't worried about him exposing anything.

 

[sgrump]

The house must have smelled like a zoo. Jonbenet had BM in her underwear in the bathroom and according to Kolar Burke's pj bottoms were found with a load as well. Both kids had ceiling fans in their rooms possibly to control odors from their toileting behaviors not for the cooling effect. Burke's was an airplane propeller style, not sure about Jonbenet's. I imagine if we were allowed to closely inspect all the crime scene photographs all manner of air fresheners and scented candles would be in the background.

Just imagine the possibilities if we could see the complete video of the house taken the evening of 12/26/1998 or all of the images from the Ramsey camera Christmas morning or the pictures taken at the Whites.

John Ramsey would be toast.

 

[BoldBear]

This thread didn't get traction because it's hard to believe that someone 6 years old could have problem like this. It's rare. It's also hard to believe a parent wouldn't notice signs like a loss of interest in food. Some children who have this problem don't know how to communicate the issue. The child still gets hungry. They still eat. They just take less an interest foods since one can taste like the other.

This can also be one of those things that the child and/or the parent hope they grow out of. It can be brought on from a cold or sinus problems. It might only be a diminished sense of smell and in the very worst cases it's a complete loss of smell and it might never come back.

Patsy said many times that pineapple was one of JB's favorites. Priscilla set aside a plate of cracked crab specifically for JB. Patsy thought the only thing she ate that night was the cracked crab but she didn't know if she ate anything else.

Here we have someone offering JB one of her favorite foods on the night they got home from a big sit down dinner. Was she hungry when they got home or was there concern that she wasn't eating?

Patsy even said JB didn't wash her hands even before dinner so eew. She would have to wash her hands to get the slime from the cracked crab off her hands.

I think Burke's painting the walls was a phase. It happened years earlier.

JB didn't wipe. She had feces in her underwear and there were feces in the sweat pants on her bathroom floor. I know everyone believes those pants belonged to Burke, but she was wearing something similar when she was found. There's no doubt in my mind that someone cleaned her up before they found her, but I don't have a problem with her wearing hand-me-downs especially for grubby every day stuff.

At any rate, I thought I'd bring it up because it's a possibility. If JB was't sensitive to the smell. It would have made potty issues harder to teach especially if Patsy tried to attach a sense of guilt and wrongdoing to it.

 

[sgrump]

Considering Kolar had access to the crime scene video and all the images his conclusion that the soiled pjs were Burke's is believable. There were also stills taken by John Ramsey Christmas morning and they would have been able to tell if they were the pjs Burke wore 12/25. Not to mention Burke was in some sort of therapy and that isn't normal for young children even if their mom's have had cancer. Something big and catastrophic had happened to him. Considering the autopsy of his sister showed evidence of ongoing sexual abuse he has to be considered a possible victim as well. It checks all the boxes.

Burke is not socially awkward or dysfunctional because Jonbenet is dead, she is dead because he had ongoing mental health issues. It's a fine line that crosses between mental health and criminal behaviors.

 

[BoldBear]

"CSIs had written about finding a pair of pajama bottoms in JonBenét’s bedroom that contained fecal material. They were too big for her and were thought to belong to Burke."

Kolar, A. James. Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (Kindle Locations 4783-4784). Ventus Publishing, llc. Kindle Edition.

There's no declarative statement here as to the ownership.